The Jukebox as Time Travel Machine (Tom Waits)

"The studio is torn down, all the people who played on it are dead, the instruments have been sold off. But you are listening to a moment that happened in time 60 years ago and you are hearing it just as sharp as when it was made. That remains an amazing thing to me."

Tom Waits talking to Tim Adams
The Observer, 23 October, 2011.

"I remember when I worked in a restaurant, sweeping up by a jukebox, and thinking, 'OK, how do you get in the jukebox and come out of it? That's the real trick."

Tom Waits talking to Andy Gill, Uncut, December 2011 (plus great cover CD, Tom Waits' Jukebox).

The American jukebox arrives to corrupt British teenagers, 1955 (FT Magazine, Dec 5/6 2009)


From around 60 years ago (nb 1951 was the year that disc jockey Alan Freed started broadcasting rock and roll music and using that term for R 'n' B):

Howlin Wolf, Moanin' at Midnight

Muddy Waters, Rollin' and Tumblin'

John Lee Hooker, I'm In the Mood

Bill Haley, Rocket 88

Bill Haley, Jukebox Cannonball

Hank Williams, I can't help it

Fats Domino, Rockin' Chair

Fats Domino, Don't Lie to me

Ella Mae Morse, Tennessee Saturday Night

Big Joe Turner, Boogie Woogie Country Girl

How Many More Years (my own time-travel back 60 years, to 1951): a Howlin' Wolf Tribute

Some hot jazz from the 1930s (recorded 15 January, 1935):

Nickel in the Slot, Wingy Malone and his Orchestra